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The priciest hotel rooms at the Mandarin Oriental, the New York Palace, the St. Regis and the city's other five-star hotel properties are about to get a lot more expensive as they unveil the results of major renovations.
Gone are the cookie-cutter suites of the past. These new spaces resemble expansive private residences replete with valuable artwork, state-of-the-art kitchens, panoramic views of Manhattan and an exhaustive list of complimentary perks such as spa treatments and luxury-car transportation to the airport.
Guests of the Palace's new Champagne Suite, for example, will immediately notice a dramatic light fixture of multicolored hand-blown glass in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. The three-story suite - which cost $3 million to build - is aptly named because it has a rustic wine cave, and boasts a private rooftop deck with a raised hot tub overlooking the Manhattan skyline.
The upgrades are driven, in part, by global hotel trends and the growing number of wealthy Russians, Brazilians and other foreign visitors coming to New York. Guests from the Middle East, who have been a mainstay of high-end suites here, expect the same "wow" factor that they are getting in their travels outside the U.S. They sometimes stay for months at a time, renting out entire floors for their entourages. They...